Zircon Corporation

Other

William M Sunlin

Charles E Heger

An impulse radar system useful, for instance, for ground penetration provides three dimensional images of targets. The radar system includes an antenna array with an arrangement of elements that is irregular so that the spacing between elements is different, thereby minimizing redundancy of path geometry between the array elements and the target. This feature reduces unwanted array sidelobes. The radar system incorporates circuitry which permits the utilization of each array element as either a transmitter or receiver antenna element. This dual utilization increases the effective number of elements in the antenna array, providing increased gain and system resolution. The radar system receiver utilizes multiple antenna array receiver elements, each of which is connected sequentially, through a solid state switch, to a single analog to digital converter, thereby providing a digitized signal for processing and display. This arrangement requires only a single analog to digital converter, thereby reducing size, cost, and errors due to analog to digital converter non-linearities.

Enhanced impulse radar system

A ground penetrating impulse radar system provides three-dimensional images of targets. A moving array of transmitting and receiving antennas provides narrow beamwidths and high gain by real and synthetic aperture beam processing. Narrow pulsewidth impulse signals are utilized to obtain high resolution. Round trip time is calculated for each three-dimensional pixel in a search volume, and is used to process three dimensional imagery. Analog to digital conversion can be utilized, so all signal processing is accomplished digitally. The radar system is applicable to detecting small objects near the surface by using very narrow pulses, and also can be applied to detect large, deep objects by wider pulses.

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

William M Sunlin